


The Bed You Didn't Make on the Morning You Weren't There

by Draikinator



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Addiction, Cw: drugs, Gen, Homelessness, Pre-War, more generalized rodion warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-08
Updated: 2015-05-08
Packaged: 2018-03-29 15:29:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3901435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draikinator/pseuds/Draikinator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gasket is an optimist living in the Dead End, and probably the only one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bed You Didn't Make on the Morning You Weren't There

Gasket hadn’t seen Drift in two months when he finally came stumbling into their little encampment under an old concrete parking garage in the Dead End and actually physically tripped over him. Gasket had only been half asleep, anxious for some reason, and his first reaction had been to grab the intruder and pin them- but Drift didn’t put up much of a fight. He never really did, and once Gasket recognized him under the grime, he helped him up and wiped some of it off with an old towel from his subspace.

“Where have you been?” He asked, despite knowing the answer. Drift just shrugged, before spasming with a violent electric current that made Gasket yank his hands away. A few people had crawled up behind him already to see, but they knew what was going on just as well as Gasket did. He sighed, and put one hand on the back of Drift’s head, tearing out the emptied booster drive from the jerry rigged jack it felt like he’d installed himself.

Drift’s optic shutters drooped, along with his arms, and he collapsed against Gasket’s front. Some of the people who’d been watching- Clearcoat, Axel, and Greaserunner stumbled over to catch him, a little slowly, but between the four of them, they managed to carry him to one of the empty mattresses in the back of the compound, and Gasket dragged over his blanket because Drift had already started shivering, recharging hard.

Drift wasn’t the only addict in their group, and this wasn’t the first time he’d stumbled back home dirty and leaking with boosters jammed up his brain, and it almost definitely wouldn’t be the last, but Gasket was always sad when it happened. He knew Drift was special- somehow. There was something about him, even if no one else saw it, that was important and unique and this- this was hard to watch.

He sat with him, halfway recharging for a few hours until he woke up shrieking and launched himself off the makeshift berth remnants and into a corner between a cement wall and a bit of plywood propped up at an angle.

“Shhh, shh,” Gasket said, crawling forward while Drift’s chest heaved, vents flared and optics wide and wild. No one looked over. “It’s just me. It’s just Gasket. You’re okay. You’re safe.”

Drift looked around frantically, before meeting Gasket’s optics. Gasket suddenly realized he was an idiot, because Drift was still plugged in when he’d rolled into camp, and he was still coming down- his audial receptors couldn’t online yet, too delicate, too close to the brain.

He offered Drift his hands and, shaking, Drift took them, fingers folding together like muscle memory.

‘It’s okay,’ Gasket signed slowly, mouthing the words, and Drift’s vents stopped straining somewhat, 'You’re home. You’re safe. It’s okay. I was worried about you.’

Drift paused, optic ridges crumpling together before he started sobbing, big tacky globs of cyan lubricant puddling in the corners of his optics as he signed, 'I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ over and over again until Gasket let go of his hands and hugged him. Drift collapsed into his touch and sobbed for ten minutes until he passed out again, shuddering and squeaking, joints rusted and still filled with an overabundance of glitching static charge that made him jerk and twitch and shiver, grime gunking up the corners of his platelets and white armour stained a sick yellow brown Gasket couldn’t bear to look at sometimes.

He was gone again in the morning, and Gasket took his blanket back.


End file.
